Ajax had laughed in her face, the dick.

You want to OD on me? Do it. He’d loomed there in their living room, that pitiless look on his face and that grin on his lips, like he wanted this thing to hurt. Like he took pleasure in it. He’d moved his hands to his zipper. Treat me like a crack pipe, babe. I dare you.

She’d taken that dare.

And sometime into that very long, very boundary-pushing night, Ajax had cradled her head in his hands while he’d moved in her, pinning her to the floor with his big body between her legs and her ankles high on his shoulders.

Some addictions aren’t all bad, Sophie, he’d gritted at her, never losing that ferocious pace of his, his cock as hard as the expression on his face and both of them tearing her apart. It’s what you do with them that counts.

Here, now, in the sunny courtyard on another October morning, Ajax pulled a bandanna out of his back pocket and wiped his hands, never shifting that hard blue gaze of his from her face.

“Got a hot date?” he asked, his voice that low, menacing rumble that still made everything inside of her clench tight. “Maybe with a pole?”

Sophie smiled at him as if her heart wasn’t beating any faster, the way it always did when she had his full attention. All that power. All that strength. All that lethal promise in his cool blue eyes and that battered body of his that backed it up every time.

God, she loved him.

“I’m going for a walk,” she told him, her voice as cool and casual as she could make it. “My daddy told me once that I could dress up like a drag queen and wander the streets of the French Quarter. Over his dead body, of course.”

“It’s not his dead body you should worry about, babe.”

Sophie let her smile deepen. “You look like you’re breathing just fine.”

She swiveled around then, and set off across the courtyard toward the alley that led out into the midday bustle of Bourbon Street. She made sure to saunter, to give him a show. She could feel him follow her. Even if she hadn’t heard his boots against the stones, she’d have felt that harsh blue gaze of his all over her ass, making her break out in goosebumps in exultant defiance of the Louisiana heat.

“You think all these douchebag tourists deserve to get a look at my property?” Ajax asked, from much closer behind her than she’d expected.

It took everything Sophie had not to jump—but she couldn’t control the way her heart thudded against her ribs, or the pulse of sheer longing that hit her hard, straight in her pussy. He didn’t touch her, but when she stopped moving at the mouth of the alley, she could feel the wild heat of his wall of a chest behind her. Almost pressing into her. Almost stealing her resolve away. He was good at that.

“Think maybe you should ask before you parade my shit half-naked down the middle of my city, babe?”

He sounded only mildly interested, but she knew better. She knew him now. She knew how his clever mind worked. She knew how he dealt with the emotions he pretended he didn’t have. She knew what kind of leader he was and she knew what kind of man he was. She knew he made being an old lady worth the questions she sometimes asked him that he couldn’t answer. So worth it. She’d never understood that part, looking in on it. She’d had no idea that intimacy could feel like this, precarious and necessary, vulnerable and strong all at once. Ajax was a revelation.

He was the love of her life.

And he was the kind of man who needed object lessons, not discussions. He was a doer, not a talker.

“This is our anniversary, asshole,” she said, tilting her head back so the headdress scraped against the stone wall of the alley and she could look at him. That gorgeous face of his, no less dangerous for all that dark blond, blue-eyed prettiness. He was still half feral. She thought maybe he always would be, and the truth about her, Sophie knew, was that she liked him that way.

One corner of his mouth crooked up. “I know what day it is.”

“This is how I celebrate.” She eyed him. “You have a problem with that?”

“What if I do?”

“If you do,” she drawled, and then lifted her left hand to wave it in front of his face, “I’ll remind you that there’s no ring on this finger. I’m not wearing a property patch at the moment. I can do what I want.”

A different sort of light kindled in that hard blue gaze of his then, making her legs feel unsteady in her crazy shoes.

“You know the deal,” he said in his low voice, making her nipples pebble hard beneath her pasties while that nearly savage look in his eyes made it hard to breathe. “You want a ring? I want ink.”

Sophie made a great show of shrugging. “You first.”

Ajax laughed that filthy laugh of his, and it danced all over her the way it always did, making her feel delicious and dirty and his. A thousand times, his. But that was the point of this, she reminded herself.

“You always come first, babe,” he told her, and he reached out then, toying with her belly ring in a lazy sort of way that made her feel slippery and much too hot. He leaned in and got his mouth on her ear. “I want my name on that ass, Sophie. A property patch you can’t take off. Ever.”

It turned out that Sophie wanted that, too. So much it actually hurt her, like a stitch in her side nothing made any better, all this whole long year. But she knew her man. He respected a fight, not an easy surrender. He was made of fists and ferocity, and he expected her to stand up to him no matter what, not to break when he got loud or a little harsh.

That was the only way he could feel free to be himself. Nothing reined in. Nothing held back. The way she got to be with him.

So she eyed him for a minute. “Then you know what you have to do, don’t you?”

He grinned, fierce and far too hot, and let go of her belly ring.

“That sounds a lot like you giving me an ultimatum.” His voice was almost casual, when she could sense that he wasn’t at all and she could feel it in that tightening inside of her that was quickly becoming the only thing she could think about. “I’m not gonna lie, babe. It makes my dick hard to think you want a repeat of that lesson. Happy fucking anniversary to me.”

Sophie glared at him. She’d tried throwing an ultimatum at him all right. Once. Ajax had taken that as an opportunity to introduce her to the joys of erotic spanking and the kind of insane fucking that came after. She couldn’t say she’d hated it, exactly. Not when she’d come that many times, and that hard. But she also hadn’t sat down comfortably for a few days, to Ajax’s endless amusement.

Nor had she tried the ultimatum route again.

No matter how many times he dared her to.

“Not at all,” she said now, her voice as light and easy as the southern sunshine that danced its way along the street. “I’m not telling you what to do. Heaven forbid I try to impose my will on the great and mighty president of the Deacons of Bourbon Street, feared by all and sundry and challenged by none. Perish the thought! I’m just going for a walk. With no one’s name on my ass. The truth is, I like walking around like this. It’s performance art and deep in my soul, Ajax, I’m an artist. I might have to do it more often.”

That laugh again, darker this time. “You can try.”

But when she rolled her eyes and set out into the street, he didn’t stop her. He simply fell in behind her like her own, personal biker bodyguard, and let her do her thing.

A year ago, this had been an act of grief. Of loss. A little girl’s final act of pointless rebellion against the father she couldn’t bear to lose.

This year, everything was different. She missed her father terribly, still. She wished he was around to see how many of his fondest wishes had come true. She wished a lot of things when it came to Priest. That she’d known him better. That he’d shared his secrets when he still could. That he’d understood how much he was loved.